Dizzying Hubble video zooms in for a detailed, layered look at the Whirlpool Galaxy
You ever get the feeling that you're just a tiny, insignificant speck floating free in the vast ocean of our universe? If the answer is "no" then you haven't been spending enough time on the Hubble Space Telescope's YouTube channel.
A video posted late last month offers a detailed view of one of our Milky Way's neighbors, the Whirlpool Galaxy. The three-minute assemblage of photos and 3D visualizations breaks down the anatomy of the galaxy using data pulled from three sources.
Hubble itself only captured the visual imagery, actual photographs. The video's infrared imaging comes from the Spitzer Space Telescope, while the x-ray imaging comes from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Captions in the video guide viewers through a process of peeling away the Whirlpool Galaxy's layers, and looking at them across different spectral bands and wavelengths.
It's informative! And also pretty. Space gives good pictures. Just mind the abundance of existential minefields.
